The Office

I know I've said this before and I'll say it again: If any office should have a television show it should be us. I spent a week in the office and have realized that we are too funny not to be shared with other humans. Any way this week wasn't exactly eventful so I'll spare the details. Because, I want to shout it from the rooftops just how much fun I had this weekend. We got to volunteer at the Quicken Loans National Tournament at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Manassas, VA. We worked on the driving range which consisted of changing out name plates, loading up all the many color coded bags of brands of golf balls, and drooling over the pros we were inches away from. Saturday started with the adventure of taking the shuttle to the course and meandering our way back to our post. We finally made it there to be next to Tiger, Ricky Barnes, and Rickie Fowler. We learned ways to mess with the masses of orange. We took Rickie's name plate and proceeded to walk all the way down to the end of the range and ponder over which stand we were gonna put it in. Then we had a revelation that oh you know what he's not even out here yet, then would walk all the way back to our tent. Saturday was just a day of getting starstruck and learning the ins and outs of our role in the tournament.
Sunday was the best day of my summer. We got there early enough to see the first tee times warming up on the range. This included Patrick Rodgers from Avon, IN with his Colts carry bag. We also got to be up close and personal to all of the leaders and the not so leaders but it was so neat. The secret ingredient to how awesome my day turned out happened to be the two other pros we got to work with. Two teaching instructors from The First Tee of Chesterfield made my day that much more interesting. They were very keen on watching the professionals routines on the range and seeing their swings and what their swing coaches had to say about it. They were able to get videos of Ernie Els, Justin Rose, and even Rickie Fowler (after talking to their agents of course). I got to wish many players good luck for their round to come and chat it up with some caddies (while they weren't peeing in the woods). I even got to give a lift to some really down to earth golfers like Tony Finau and bat my eyelashes at golfers like Ollie Schniederjans. We saw a lot of our MAPGA Junior Tour players behind the fence of the range and on the course observing or being a standard bearer. All-in-all it was an incredible day that I can't sum up even for myself to remember but I'll try to do my best with pictures and anything that pops up in my head.

Look Mom I'm on TV! I mean my mom sent me this picture because I told her to watch and look for me, but here we go! I'm pretty excited, but also you cannot miss me with my red hair. You'll never get me confused.

Ernie Els spends all of his time on the short range. He will spend hours here and only hit a couple of drives into the woods.

Ricky Barnes on the range.

It's all fun and games until the crowd gets mad at you for messing with them.

KJ Choi has the funniest warm up. He uses resistance bands to warm up and then hits for maybe 30 mins and he's all set.

Tony Finau and his really cool caddie, which I saved his life because I got a beetle off of his back!

Fedez-Castano (coolest accent)

This is Ed. He is a Britt. Therefor he is insanely obsessed with Justin Rose. He danced like a girl when he walked onto the range, he wouldn't move from his post behind Justin just so he could take it all in. And when Justin was finally finished on the range he was sure to take his name plate. Someone just had to give him the idea to grab some golf balls (jokes aside) and even his water bottle. Some day he will most likely baptize his children in the water Justin drank from... yeah he's crazy about Justin.

These were my rental friends, that became my real friends before the day was over. They made my day so much more entertaining than I ever expected.

Troy Merritt was the leader and winner after breaking the course record. He was a fun guy to watch and his Australian caddie made great conversation. Fun fact about him is that he plays with a very large silver chain necklace. And I watched Rickie's caddie smack him on the butt and Rickie didn't want to miss out so he was soon to follow and nearly knocked Troy over.  

Watching Rickie on hole 3 was pretty interesting because not only did I get to talk to him both days but I also got to run into a couple of my favorite golfers from our MAPGA Junior Tour which are featured in the bottom of this picture.

I also enjoyed watching Justin Rose on the range and seeing all the respect him and his caddie held with all of the other players. 

As much as I hate to admit it I enjoyed watching Tiger on the range. Despite the flying explicative, his swing left me in awe and being the biggest name in golf he always drew a crowd.

It was definitely my favorite day of my summer so far!

Sincerely,

Michelle